Seventy Images of Grace in the Epistles . . . That Make All the Difference in Daily Life
Publisher: Cascade Books, an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers (2015)
How can faith speak directly to people’s real lives? How can conversation around Scripture make “all the difference” in the arenas of one’s daily world? People who have heard the Bible many times–or for the first time–want to know in the terms and images of their life situation. “When my world seems to be shaking all around me, why doesn’t it help to hear ‘You are forgiven’?” And further, “What can I say to someone who feels totally alienated from God?”
Seventy Images of Grace in the Epistles will help people make connections and empower them for their ministries in daily life. The book presents an interplay of stories of people’s actual lives and Epistle images of grace. Readers will begin to recognize the depth of the human predicament and the power of the gospel, thereby becoming equipped for Christian discipleship and vocation, not from duty or guilt, but from freedom. “Guides for Engagement” will help readers turn the book into a learning event.
View or download a PDF flyer for Seventy Images of Grace in the Epistles.
Transforming Leadership: New Vision for a Church in Mission
Transforming Leadership sets forth the core values and leadership practices that can bring fundamental transformation to the life of the local church. Based on experience and research, Everist and Nessan explore three dimensions of transforming leadership: (1) how leaders are formed and transformed, (2) how transforming leadership can renew congregations and focus their ministry to do justice, and (3) how congregations can be transformed by empowering all members to use their gifts for ministry.
Committed to the vitality and mission of the congregation, the authors promise neither a quick fix nor easy answers. Transforming leadership, they have found, is deeply rooted in theological conviction, expressed in genuine love for the people one serves, and cultivated through wise practices. The book grapples with challenging congregational dynamics, promotes the ministry of all the baptized, and provides vision for the lasting renewal of the church in mission.
Christian Education as Evangelism
Publisher: Fortress Press (2007)
Christian Education as Evangelism provides skills and tools for evangelical outreach. Each chapter includes stories, questions for reflection, and practical parish strategies. An ideal primary textbook for college and seminary classrooms.
Click here for the Introduction from the book (PDF)
Click here for the Table of Contents from the book (PDF)
Open the Doors and See All the People:Stories of Church Identity and Vocation
Publisher: Wipf and Stock (Reprinted 2016)
Emerging from the author’s interviews and interactions with numerous Lutheran congregations across the country, this book explores how congregations are determining and living out their identity. Their stories are intended to encourage and inspire other Lutheran congregations to take a close look at their own contexts and plan for the future. Questions and activities for reflection make this a great tool for congregational planning and development.
Church Conflict: From Contention to Collaboration
Publisher: Abingdon Press (2004)
You love your work. You love the people–most of the time. They respect you, most of the time. You work together with colleagues, staff, and laity, with energy and enthusiasm, most of the time. But then something goes wrong: a word spoken in anger, a misunderstanding, and things turn sour. What do you do? How do you deal with conflict, whether it be long or short-term, low or high intensity?
Conflict is a part of the human predicament, yet it need not define or control your ministry. This book is designed to help the reader ask certain key questions about the nature and scope of the conflict they are experiencing and, based on the answers to those questions, move beyond conflict. The author lays out the variety of responses to conflict, running the gamut from avoidance to accommodation to compromise to collaboration.
Written with the real needs of congregations in mind, this book will serve as a reliable guide to all who wish to move through conflict into a more effective and authentic fulfillment of their calling.
The Church As Learning Community: A Comprehensive Guide to Christian Education
Publisher: Abingdon Press (2002)
Norma Cook Everist contends that it is meaningful to say that in ministries of administration, outreach, and pastoral care, the church is functioning as a learning community. Whenever and wherever Christians are being formed into the image of Jesus Christ through ministry, there Christian education is taking place. Christian education is the name we give to that process of formation.
Building on this central insight, Everist has written a major new introduction to the tasks and practices of Christian education. Part 1 of the book focuses broadly on what it means to be the church in the world. Part 2 shows how being a learning community requires ongoing growth in faith throughout the span of life. Part 3 shifts focus to the church as it moves into the community and world.
Click here for a excerpt from the book (PDF)
The Difficult But Indispensable Church
Editor: Norma Cook Everist
Publisher: Fortress Press (2002)
Why is it so difficult to be church today? Of course, Christian community is marked by ennobling worship, mutual care, and joyful celebration. But just as often it is marred by staid routine, insularity, and disagreement over leadership, budgets, ethical stances, or even the shape of congregational prayer itself. Alienation, blame, and power struggles ensue. Is church worth it? In this volume of fresh thinking about life in Christian community, twenty-one theologians from Wartburg Seminary strongly attest to Christ-centered community, offering new views of church as the indispensable site of radical Christian commitment and an essential healer for a hurting world.
Reflective churchgoers will find here a virtual theological guide to church renewal. In part 1 the authors show how church can model an alternative vision of community, helping people achieve well-being and health, even as their differences are affirmed. Part 2 gets to the heart of Christian practice through creative discussions of belief, fellowship, encounters with Scripture, preaching, and moral deliberation. Part 3 finds the church in motion in new ways of understanding discipleship and mission near and far. Part 4 shows how a Christ-inspired openness can reveal new perspectives on tough issues of public policy, race and class, and ordination of gays and lesbians. Modeling what they espouse, the authors find unanimity in affirming the strengths of diversity, the unsuspected key to church renewal.
For more details on this book, including a table of contents preview, click here: The Difficult But Indispensable Church.
Ordinary Ministry, Extraordinary Challenge: Women and the Roles of Ministry
Publisher: Abingdon Press (2000)
One of the difficulties women clergy face is the lack of mentors. Although women make up a sizable percentage of parish clergy, once out of seminary they often experience isolation and lack of contact with other women in professional ministry. This situation is especially problematic as women’s experience of the tasks and roles of ministry differ from those of men, sometimes subtly, sometimes more so. Where do they turn for help in figuring out the ups and downs of following God’s call into ministry as a woman? How can the men with whom they work understand the challenges their female colleagues face as well?In
Ordinary Calling, Extraordinary Challenge, Norma Cook Everist brings together several women clergy to demonstrate what parish ministry is like in women’s experience. Drawing on years of parish experience, they examine such a wide range of topics as the ministry of preaching, the ministry of stewardship, the ministry of justice, the ministry of outreach, and many more. Written for women and men, this volume will provide support, encouragement, and guidance for performing the many tasks and assuming the many roles of parish minister.
Key Features:
Brings together the real experience of women clergy • Addresses the nature of the differences between men and women in fulfilling certain key roles or functions of pastoral leadership • Addresses the sense of isolation among clergy women after seminary
Key Benefits:
Helps clergy, both male and female, understand the unique challenges of parish ministry faced by women clergy • Helps denominational officials and laypersons understand the different responses to pastoral tasks and roles perceived by women and men
Connections: Faith and Life
Publisher: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (1997)
Connections is a visit to the worlds God is creating and redeeming today: homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, and places of recreation and volunteer activity. The goals of this experiential learning resource are to help participants meet God in their everyday lives:
- See their worlds as God’s creation.
- Recognize Christ’s redemption in their lives.
- Discover that they are already in ministry.
- Be nurtured in their skills and gifts for ministry.
- Live out the call of their Baptism in their daily lives.
- Share their faith and life connections so that they can support one another.
- Be accountable in their callings to God and to one another.
The creating, redeeming and life-giving God continues graciously to reach out to us. Learning together is making a connection between Martin Luther’s catechetical “What does this mean?” of God’s Word and the “What in the world does this mean?” of our own lives. That intersection is the place for dynamic learning.
The Connections resources are currently available via the Wartburg Seminary website. You may use these resources provided you appropriately credit the authorship of the material. No portion of the content may be altered.
Where in the World Are You? : Connecting Faith and Daily Life
Publisher: The Alban Institute (1996)
Everist and Vos challenge congregations to take a new look at mission — to see themselves as God’s people in the world. Explore exciting new understandings that come from starting with people in the world rather than with church structures.
Professors Everist (clergy, Wartburg Theological Seminary) and Vos (laity, Muhlenberg College) bring their insights to bear on how people’s daily struggles, needs, and hopes can connect to God’s mission through practical steps. These include spiritual growth and the challenge of mutual accountability. A reflections section helps readers discern God at work in their lives.
Gentle Strength: Homilies and Hymns of Ralph F. Smith
Compiler and editor: Norma Cook Everist
Education Ministry in the Congregation
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress (1983)